This application relates to a passive liquid collecting device for separating and collecting liquid from a mixture of liquid and vapor.
In microgravity and zero gravity environments, fluids tend to distribute throughout the reservoir storing the fluid. Some of the fluid, such as liquid, will attach to a wall of the reservoir, and the rest of the fluid will float throughout a cavity defined by the reservoir. The distribution of fluids attached to the reservoir wall and floating in the cavity can raise challenges when drawing a liquid phase of the fluid from the reservoir.
Two phase chiller systems, sometimes called thermal control loops, frequently have accumulators which collect both liquid and vapor refrigerant. The two phase chiller systems may be damaged or operate less efficiently if they draw a mixture of liquid and vapor from the accumulator instead of drawing liquid. Specifically, delivery of vapor to a pump within a chiller system may cause pump cavitation.
In addition to chiller systems, vapor-liquid phase separation is used in the oil and gas industry, various chemical manufacturing and treatment processes, fuel management systems, and numerous other applications. For example, in many chemical manufacturing and treatment processes, liquid and vapor phases are separated and directed along different paths for further individual processing or treatment.
A known solution for separating liquid from vapor is a structure that operates through capillary material. The capillary material collects liquid, but not vapor. The capillary material can be arranged within a reservoir to gather dispersed liquid and channel it to a desired location.
Capillary materials function in large part by porosity. The use of the material requires certain design considerations to guide liquid to a specific location instead of simply collecting and retaining the liquid. One known approach to guide the liquid is to construct the capillary material such that pores decrease in size as they approach the desired collection location. Systems operating on this principle can be difficult to design and manufacture such that they work efficiently.